Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Athletico Spizz 80 - Do A Runner

After the embarrassment of riches that was to be found at this weekend's Portishead curated All Tomorrow's Parties, I actually spent nearly all of monday not listening to any music, just to heal my brain and ears a bit. For those who are wondering, the Phead comeback was immense and beautiful, and the new stuff sounds really exciting. The rest of the lineup was pure genius from what I saw (only a rather odd solo set from Sparklehorse really disappointed me even a little), but it was the Sunday afternoon and evening run of *deep breathe* Oren Ambarchi, Boris, Earth, Sunn O))), Aphex Twin and Fuck Buttons that truly shattered my skull. What an ace weekend, and now thank God I can reassume listening to music without seeing a cloaked demon in my brain slowly cutting his way through my eardrums.

So to re-assume normal services, my first new post comes in the form of some clasisc British post-punk from Athletico Spizz 80. In 1977 Kenneth Spiers, known to the music world as Spizz, started recording music under a number of names. In fact it seems like every year since then he would take on another name; sometimes to do with something that was going on in that year (Spizzoil for example in 1978 as North Sea oil was in the news). His most famous moment came with the single Where's Captain Kirk under the band name Spizzenergi in 1979-80, which became the first single to ever top the UK Indie singles chart and would later feature in the cult classic Urgh! A Music War post-punk live compilation film (a stunning piece that really needs to be reissued but probably never will, see Wikipedia for more on that). During 1980 the band changed it's name to Athletico Spizz '80 and released their debut album, Do A Runner. It's really a great underrated piece of early new wave, reminding me slightly of a British Devo with it's slightly robotic feel, and also of White Music-era XTC with it's utterly infectious melodic energy. Well worth a purchase if you should see a bashed up copy in a shop somewhere, as are most of the other records under the various Spizz monickers. Here are a few tracks, and a bonus mp3 of that classic single. Enjoy.